Promotional Information

Participate in the CBSD Galley Box and send copies to the top 50 or so Open Letter bookstore accounts: City Lights, McNally Jackson, Elliot Bay, etc.

The manuscript is already in the hands of reviewers of Volodine's Writers, which is coming out from Dalkey Archive this fall. Several reviewers are planning on including Ten Lessons in their reviews.

Approximately 200 advance copies sent to primary publications. This list includes: New York Times, SF Chronicle, LA Times, n+1, New York Review of Books, The Nation, Bookforum, The Believer, Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, Rain Taxi, Time Out New York/Chicago, World Literature Today, Flavorwire, Washington Post, BOMB, Literary Review, Complete Review, Words Without Borders, B&N Review, Harper's, Shelf Awareness, Quarterly Conversation, Chicago Tribune, Typographical Era, Slate, Salon, etc. Also sent to the following trade publications: Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Booklist, Library Journal.

Advance copies also sent to members of the NBCC Award Committee and the Best Translated Book Award Fiction Committee.

Strong push to editors at io9 as an example of a unique, very literary sci-fi universe that would interest their readers.

Giveaway of 25 copies on GoodReads, along with contacting members who have given his other works positive reviews.

Promote on Three Percent and on social media via Open Letter's FB & Twitter accounts (over 4,200 likes on FB; almost 9,200 followers on Twitter).

Special series on Three Percent highlighting each of the ten lessons of the post-exoticist movement along with interviews with the translator (who doubles as a Volodine scholar) and possibly Volodine himself (who hides behind a series of pseudonyms and is a bit of a recluse).

Ebook available and will be mentioned on all press release materials, Open Letter website, etc.

About the Author

Antoine Volodine is the primary pseudonym of a French writer who has published 20 books under this name, several of which are available in English translation, including Minor Angels, Naming the Jungle, and Writers. He also publishes under the names Lutz Bassmann (We Monks and Soldiers) and Manuela Draeger (In the Time of the Blue Ball). Most of his works take place in a post-apocalyptic world where members of the "post-exoticism" writing movement have all been arrested as subversive elements. Together, these works constitute one of the most inventive, ambitious projects of contemporary writing.

J.T. Mahany is a graduate of the masters program in literary translation at the University of Rochester. He is currently translating several books by the enigmatic and intriguing French author, Antoine Volodine.

Reviews

"Clever and incisive."—New York Times

"All of this seems unreal and hyperreal. But this is a book signed by Antoine Volodine—and this is what we have come to expect of anything bearing his name . . Irreducible to any single literary genre, the Volodinian cosmos is skillfully crafted, fusing elements of science fiction with magical realism and political commentary. It is an unnavigable matrix whose inhuman face is pockmarked by linguistic and narrative black holes, which force the reader to critically rethink the boundaries of literature and language itself."—Nicholas Hauck, Music & Literature

"His quirky and eccentric narrative achieves quite staggering and electric effects. . . . Dazzling in its epic proportions and imaginative scope."—The Nation

"His talent surfaces time and again in luxurious, hypnotic ways."—Publishers Weekly

"Volodine's characters struggle against humankind's demise, managing to cling to their full names and little else, and in the process they reveal their compelling histories and strange presents, all of them concerned that their stories be told.'"—Tim Feeney, Review of Contemporary Fiction